Photo By Peter Spero

I love to sing and dance.  I sing and dance alone, I sing and dance around friends, I even love to sing and dance in front of an audience.  But thus far in life I have not created a career out of singing and dancing.  While I love to perform on stage, what I truly enjoy is expressing myself through music, whether someone is watching or not.  As a teenager, throughout all of the normal trials and tribulations I experienced going through high school, what carried me through was the thought, “As long as I can play guitar I’ll be okay.”  No matter what life situation I encountered, I experienced joy when I was playing music.

By no means am I a great musician.  Everyday I enjoy listening to musicians whose talent and skills will always be far superior to my musical capabilities.  Does this take some of the enjoyment away from singing and dancing?  Not in the slightest.  On the contrary, I am truly thankful for the musical gifts more talented artists share with the world for our enjoyment.

At the end of the day, I can still sing with my family.  I can always dance around my own living room.  In these instances of action I truly experience life.  Attaching my identity to the thought of “being a singer” or “being an artist” pales in comparison to that felt present moment experience.

This video of Mark Nepo is truly liberating.  If you have a passion going unfulfilled, or are being blocked from your own creative expression, Mark offers a freeing perspective: